No. 22

2/VIII 1902. [Lausanne].

Dear Vladimir Ilyich,

Yesterday I wrote to you about the impossibility for me to come to London before the beginning of September.

Now, from Lausanne, I wish to add a few words concerning what you have just read.

A Congress would be extraordinarily useful, and yet it can take place only in Switzerland: it is completely impossible for everyone who ought to be at the Congress to go to London. To London can go only a few. You wrote, Vladimir Ilyich, that not everyone will come here at once. It turns out that it is possible to summon all of them precisely at once. The consideration about the archive is eliminated by the fact that you can bring the necessary part of the archive here with you. Now we have little money in the fund. But this obstacle too can be circumvented in one way or another. The fact is that this whole crowd finds it easier to go to London than for you to go from London.

So, decide. One more word: I wrote to you about my personal matter, which may compel me to leave Geneva. I shall try to arrange things so that this matter does not prevent me from appearing at the Congress. But in order for me to be able to arrange this, I need to know your decision as soon as possible. Write then.

I shake your hand firmly.

Your G. P.

*) Before Plekhanov's letter comes a letter signed "2a 36" (Lepeshinskii)—and the beginning of this principal letter has not been preserved. The preserved passage reads as follows: "which there are certain considerations in favor of Switzerland... Here there are fairly remote little places where people would feel themselves quite safe from spies, and at the same time—a very great plus in this case—cheapness. How to assemble? in what composition? Still in Russia, when I happened to be present at conversations on this subject, it was supposed to be highly desirable that Sonia be present with her sons, Arkady [I. I. Radchenko], that NN of whom I wrote in the previous letter, and a representative from the Petersburg Union. As for foreign friends, whom to invite—that is, of course, for you to judge... When to assemble?.. I personally would be in favor of it not later than the 1st half of August (in the old style; I still cannot get accustomed to the new one), since in that case my modest figure too, etc. (here abroad I cannot stay long). If you agreed with this plan, it would be very important if you immediately gave notice from yourself to Arkady [I. I. Radchenko], Sonia and to whom you find it necessary about your decision reached on this matter with categorical instructions on how to proceed, for example, in the event of a Congress—when and where to assemble, not later than what deadline, and so on. Then I would ask you to write to me here as well, to the address known to you, about your decision, so that I in turn could write to Russia (to my addresses)—an extra letter in such cases never hurts. 

If for some reason you take a negative view of this Congress idea, then on receiving a letter from you I still think of coming to you (together, perhaps, with G. V. [Plekhanov]), since meeting with you in the interests of even my own personal psychology I consider extremely important.

Then—I shake your hand firmly. "2a 36"."

According to Lepeshinskii's words, he came abroad in June and returned to Russia in early July; he did not succeed in meeting with V. I. Lenin this time, and he, having met with G. V. Plekhanov, having communicated news from Russia, having made a report on the state of affairs, returned to Pskov and took up preparatory work for convening the Organizational Committee.

Panteleimon Nikolaevich Lepeshinskii joined the Social-Democrats back in the time of the first "Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class," was arrested in connection with this Union and exiled to Siberia, to Yenisei province, Minusinsk district, the village of Ermakovo, which was located near Shushenskoe, where V. I. Lenin lived in exile. Here P. N. Lepeshinskii became one of the closest friends and students of V. I. Lenin. From that time on, Lepeshinskii repeatedly carried out the most responsible assignments on the instructions of V. I. Lenin: upon his return from exile he settled in Pskov and was there an agent of Iskra, through whom the editorial office of the newspaper conducted relations with Russia; he was also co-opted into the O.C.* constituted in November 1902. Arrested on 3 November of that year immediately after the construction of the O.C., he was exiled again to Eastern Siberia for 6 years, from whence he escaped abroad and joined the Bolsheviks there. During the split up to the Third Congress Lepeshinskii was in the center of the Bolshevik group in Geneva. In 1905 he returned to Russia and from that time did not cease revolutionary work. With the beginning of the war he decisively took the side of the defeatists and Lenin and subsequently took active part in the October Revolution. Now a Communist and deputy chairman of MOPR. Party nicknames: "Lapot," "2a 36" (signature in letters).

Sonia—a conspiratorial name for that part of the Russian organization of Iskra, which was represented by the "Rodents"—the Krzhizhannovskys G. M. and Z. P., who lived in Samara ("Sonia").

Who "NN" was, Lepeshinskii does not remember.